when dolls go to sleep
by Gray Doll
Summary: When he returns, almost a week later, she is still there.


**Warnings:** Abuse. Some blood. Master/Slave relationship. Nothing uncommon with this pairing.

**Notes:** This is a very small part, snapshot maybe, of an AU I'm writing and I am not sure I will post, so if certain things don't make sense as you read, feel free to use your imagination, read between the lines and fill the gaps however you wish. Feedback is always more than welcome, and if you like this one, I will try to finish the whole thing and hopefully post it.

* * *

**when dolls go to sleep**

When he finds her leaning against a wall in a dark alley – skin glistening white with fever and eyes round and wet with tears – his lip curls in disgust.

She looks the sickly creature she had promised she would never become when he had taken her under his wing. She looks weak and frail; a broken doll.

But her face lights up with hope and need and desperation when she sees that it is him crouching down to stroke her cheek. Her voice is cracked and shaky and full of reverence when she utters his name, his name that is drawn from her lips like a prayer, like she's pressing her mouth against a rosary.

He lifts her to her feet and she forces herself to stand upright for his sake, and when he carries her to his house he cradles her head against his chest and gives her bread and water and wine. It's been too long since he last saw her and he takes his pleasure from her as soon as she's finished with her offered dinner, fingers harsh and tight all over her as he pushes her down on his bed.

(Wisely, she does not protest, merely clings to him and cries out his name over and over like a plea to a callous god.)

* * *

"Rodolphus did not insult me," she says.

The back of his hand hits her face with a resounding smack. "_Rodolphus_ rejected you."

Her eyes fill with tears – she's so prone to crying for him lately, his beautiful Bella – and her lip quivers. "Rodolphus would never have hit me, either."

His fingers grip her chin so tightly he's sure she will bruise, if only for a short time. "Then run back to your precious husband, who cast you aside. For whom your love was not enough. See if he and his brother take you back."

She screams wordlessly at him when he walks off without another glance at her direction.

(When he returns, almost a week later, she is still there, full of apologies and silent pleas for affection.)

* * *

Her blood smells like something dark and sweet, like burnt sugar. She mewls like a contented kitten – drunk and satiated after their kill, after the taste of the red wine he once again gave her – while he holds her against his chest and his teeth bite into her pretty pale neck and she trembles in his arms.

She's bleeding rubies all over her tattered, torn dress.

He drags his finger over her exposed skin. He likes her curves, the softness of her now that she's been fed and watered and kept away from the streets. He likes how slender and delicate she still appears; like a broken doll.

_His_ broken doll. His beautiful, fragile Bella; she's a ruin, but he loves tracing her cracks and split seams.

And then she has to go and ruin the moment, his simpering, idiotic doll. "I wish I could have shared this with Rodolphus."

(She holds herself together when he's done and walks away; her cracks have multiplied and her seams are torn wide open.)

* * *

Sometimes he doesn't know why he keeps her; she has become insipid and fragile, nothing like the burning warrior he had once taught her to be. He has told her to be strong, shown her how – and she can be, oh, his Bella can be a fierce, wicked thing when she wants to – but somehow it always comes back to this.

Crumpled at his feet, wearing nothing but the shadows of bruises and traces of blood, like rubies against pale white skin, exposing all her vulnerabilities.

"Rodolphus would have never hurt me like this," she murmurs.

Because she will not learn. His beautiful and pathetic doll; she's beyond broken, he cannot piece her back together exactly how he wants. Some of her just refuses him. His lips curl in frustration, because she cannot learn the easiest lesson.

"Rodolphus would not take care of you and make you strong," he hisses. He wants to hit her again – but he knows that no matter what he does, this is a lesson he cannot beat into her.

Bellatrix's mind is going, slipping away, but perhaps she was a silly girl to begin with. He tells himself that he does not care if her mind goes completely; that he can still have his fun with her.

"Why do I not feel strong?" Her eyes, dark like lifeless stars, stare up at him, round and wet. "Why do I feel so weak?"

And he snarls – because she is weak, because she is broken and she will not be fixed, not like he wants her, too stupid and too stubborn to remember to forget her glittering life before she was imprisoned and her precious, loving husband that he somehow can never match up to.

"Because you are weak, Bellatrix. You were weak when you were brought to me and I gave you life. You were weak when I was gone and you let yourself be taken, locked away. You were weak when I found you and renewed you. You will be weak when I leave you."

She blinks back her tears and reaches up for him. Her fingers are tight, thin, spidery bonds around his wrists, and she says, "I will be stronger. I promise. I want to have fun again."

He smiles – because this is all she can give him right now, _fun_ with his beautiful, broken doll – and pulls her up. "There's a good child, Bella," he praises.

(And she smiles as well, a bright and blooming thing at the words of kindness from her callous god, while plots of burning down his temple form in her not so gone mind.)

* * *

Bellatrix catches him by surprise the day she thinks she's killed him. Vicious and vindictive; his broken doll is a wild animal. She revels in his shock, in her victory, in her glorious 'kill'.

He lies there, his soul screaming and singing in the locket not too far away and he wonders how her madness kept him so blind to her strength between her weakness. But he thinks that when he finds her again, he will kiss his broken doll, and they can devour each other for days.

When she has had some time to herself. When she has found her pretty Rodolphus again and played and laughed and found him wanting.

(But then he hears her screaming, crying in his head as her life is burned to ash and she is engulfed by bright green light – and he almost utters her name, like a plea to a callous god.)


End file.
